From
Swords Crossed:
Ezra Klein has a perceptive post:
This is a very weird idea by Ross Douthat:
Now, if Kristof wanted to write a column advocating a grand bargain - in which, say, pro-lifers accept increased funding for contraception and over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill in exchange for stronger legal restrictions on abortion - that would be interesting. Much too interesting, I'm afraid, to ever see print in the New York Times.
Douthat, it seems, has both the pro-choicers and the pro-lifers exactly backwards. The former believe a woman's control over her own body is an inviolable right, the latter see each and every abortion as an unconscionable murder. . .
To be sure, Ezra's next line is flat wrong. Pro-choice folk like myself are intensely interested in the availability of contraception. Strange that he would write that sentence.) Ezra's contention is that compromise on the right to choose is really not possible. I happen to agree. And to prove my theory, I am going to test it on Trevino. I am going to make an offer that no one who is pro-choice would ever agree to, to see if Trevino will bite.
Here's my offer Josh -
I propose that the pro-choice and anti-choice movements agree to jointly advocate for a Constitutional amendment that will guarantee the right to choose during the first two trimesters of pregancy while providing States the right to ban abortions in the third trimester with an exception for life (not health, life) of the mother.
Think of it Josh. You can end the "scourge" of "partial birth abortion" forever by just being "reasonable."
Of course, you can not interfere in any way with a woman's right to choose in the first two trimesters of pregnancy. you can't tell a woman about "fetal pain," you can't tell a doctor what to advise his patients, you can't impose waiting periods. Nothing.
How can you refuse that "reasonable compromise?"